With the wide availability of imaging and sensor devices, there has been a tremendous growth in the volume of image/video data. Globally, it is estimated that at any second, there are over 1 trillion photos available online from web pages, social media, ad photos, etc. According to a forecast from Cisco VNI Mobile 2012, global mobile data traffic will grow to 10.8 exabytes per month by 2016, and over 70% of mobile data will be video.
Similarly, at the individual level, consumers now tend to generate significant amount of personal photos. With the proliferation of high-end smartphones, tablets, cameras, and camcorders, the volume of these personal photos is expected to grow phenomenally. The volume, velocity, and variety of photos being captured and generated can make it challenging to organize and manage captured images. It can be time-consuming and tedious to review, organize and categorize the large number of images being captured, and as a result, users may leave their photos unorganized, or merely arranged in the order they were uploaded or stored.
Similarly, the large volume of images makes it difficult to navigate collections of images to identify a particular image or image type. Again this process can be time-consuming, and may be overwhelming when the collection of images becomes large.